Here’s some food for thought….
At the last airsoft event I was asked by a fellow airsofter what spare parts he should consider stocking up on in case his AEG went down.
My reply was, “Another rifle – and preferably one that uses the same magazines.”
Lets face it: digging into a broken airsoft gun is a bit of a process of elimination. 9 times out of 10 it will require you to open your gun up in order to correctly diagnose the problem. In order to do this, you will need a small suite of tools to make it happen. You will need a reasonably clean work surface. You will need parts. Most of all, you will need time. The time involved in tearing open your AEG is time lost during an event. Time lost is also fun lost.
… Unless we’re talking about an ROTC event, in which case time is all you will ever have while waiting for the BLUFOR to engage ^_-
Short of keeping an inventory of absolutely every internal part for your AEG on hand, you may invariably find that you have broken a part that you don’t have in your kit. One possible solution to tackling this eventuality is to have a fully assembled spare gearbox ready to drop in should your primary fail. While I carry a fully stocked array of parts in my war chest, they are primarily there to fix something should all other options fail (including my spare AEG’s.) I generally consider spare parts as something to consider having during large multi-day events. It’s nice to have that type of insurance during down time when you might have the luxury of time to dig into a fix-it project.
But there is a better solution: have a spare gun.
A spare gun is indeed more expensive out the gate, but the time saved by simply switching to your spare is very, very worth it. Some AEG’s failures have the potential to knock you out of the game entirely – especially if you don’t have the parts on hand to fix it. Why let a breakdown hold you back from getting back into the game?
If you’re new to airsoft, and you are looking to buy a spare AEG, I generally recommend that it be as close a clone to your primary as possible. At the very least it should use the same magazines and be wired to have the same battery plugs. There are also a few other advantages to having a clone of your primary:
- Simplified logistics. You have one set of magazines that can interchange between the two platforms. This applies to batteries too.
- Simplified need for spare parts. At the very worst you can scrap one gun out for parts to keep the other running.
- Simplified demands on your load-bearing gear. You do not need to consider an alternate load bearing platform or pouches to carry different magazines (as everything is identical.) This also means less gear to pack.
So in the eventuality that your AEG does go down (and trust me, it will) you can shrug Mr. Murphy off, plug in a battery into your spare gun, insert a magazine, and get back into the game.
– Arkady
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